Sexual Attitudes and Sexual Behaviors in Young University Students

Abstract

In the development of this study we had as main objectives to identify and evaluate the attitude of university students about emergency oral contraception, variation according to gender, and to evaluate the relationship of this attitude with the adoption of sexual risk behaviors. For this purpose, we implemented a descriptive-correlational, cross-sectional quantitative study using a non-probabilistic sample of 457 university students. We found that in our sample, the majority of the youngsters were female (61.7%) and the mean age was 21.04 (21.04 ± 2.59), the vast majority of students reported having had sex (80.5%). With regard to the habit of talking with parents about sexuality/contraception, only 36.1% mentioned this habit. Regarding the attitude towards the use of emergency oral contraception, we can conclude that it is positive in the generality of students with a mean score overall of 2.80, with no statistically significant differences between genders (t = .607, p = .544). Also in relation to the adoption of risk behaviors by the students, there was no relation with the overall attitude towards the use of emergency oral contraception (U = -1,080, p = .662), nor with any of the attitude subscales.